Their walk had brought them opposite the morning-room window at which Miss Forcus was now standing looking out, wondering what Francis had found to say to the girl to whom he so seldom spoke. Deleah with an effort found her voice. "That time--when you spoke to me about your brother--I had not promised to marry him." "I know," he said very gently, for her voice showed him that she was distressed. "But Reggie wished it very much. And, perhaps, but for my having taken action, you would have done?" "I don't know," Deleah said, her head hung over the flowers in her hands. Her hat was big, he could not, if he would, see her face. "Mama and Bessie wished it--" "And--but for me--you would have wished it?" "I don't know." She gave him an instant's imploring glance. Surely he must understand how difficult it was for her to explain to him how she felt about Reggie! The Reggie he was so nobly offering her. The Reggie, that not only her mother and Bessie, but now Sir Francis himself wished her to marry, and that therefore, undoubtedly she would have to marry. She could not tell him this, could only stand before him--for they had come to a pause in the middle of the gravel sweep before the big hall door--with hanging head, pulling nervously at the stalks of her flowers, and repeat with a childishness he must despise, "I don't know." "Well, we shall see," he said encouragingly. "But at least you will not hurry away? You will stay with us until Reggie comes home? Go to my sister and tell her so. Will you?" "If you wish it," Deleah said. Miss Forcus, who under no circumstance could have been cold or inhospitable, received the intimation that Deleah was to stay until Reginald came home with less than accustomed warmth. "Of course, my dear! You know I hated the thought of your going; but why is it to be for Reggie especially? Were you and Reggie such friends?" Deleah admitted without enthusiasm that they were certainly friends. "Then, no doubt he will be glad to see you," Miss Forcus said, and thought to herself that now she was going to have the daughter of a felon for her sister-in-law. By way of solace to her family pride she turned from the impending, disastrous marriage of the step-brother to that satisfying alliance her own brother had made. The daughter of a baronet had been his wife--the sister-in-law of a peer. The baronet was a banker, and rich. If the little son had lived he would have inherited his grandfather's fortune which now had gone to the son of Lord Brace. Lord Brace, who was an Irish peer, wanted the money more than Francis, certainly, who had a sufficient fortune of his own, even without that considerable one his wife had received from her mother, and had left to him.